Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-09-08

welcome invitation to Chinese labor. |
Se.all holdings, owned by independent |
proprietors, with such proximity to their !
neighbors as will confer upon the resident |
in thickly-settled neighborhocd such adj
vantages that The best and the highest
capacities within him are not going into
complete disuse, will be the only refuge
from the absolute extinction of the rural
spirit among our people. A boom in the
subdivision Of land is te be ardently de-
sired, because such boom means the
density of settlement, and intelligent, in
dependent, right-thiuling, self-respecting
rural populations 1t means the growth
of cities and towns, because it means
the growth of a patronage in all
the things that make towns ne
| ceSsary to men but mere
boom in the value of real estate, without
a experimenting accession of population
and capital, means simply an arrest of
growth. 1t is the determent of the in
crease of population. 1t is an obstacle to
growth because it makes growth more
costly. 1t repels immigration, because it
reduces the purchasing power of the money
belonging tie the immigrant, and the i'm
migrant and his money naturally gravi-
tate to that place where the purchasing
power of what he has accumulated will be
the greatest. In the midst of boom
movement, sober and thoughtful suggestion
Is never listened to. The cunning
sehemers by whose rapacity they are
planned, generally infect the whole COM
munity with the belief that every one and
every ones interest and business is to be
promoted by them. During the great
stock excitenents, which have afflicted
our people, and by which the masses have
been despoiled of their money to the vast
enrichment Of a few greedy and dishonest
manipulators of markets, those already |
yictimized resented the cool-headed phil |
osophy Of their best friends They were
already in for a few shares of stock, and
ANphNN upOh uldll WIG lIlllueDCCQ
Others against investing as their natural |
enemy and yet stock booms arrested the |
growth of California for more than ten
years. 1t debauched the industry of the |
country. 1t energized the gambling spirit |
it made men disconnected with the re-
wards of patient and honest industry. 1t |
held out alluring prospect of sudden wealth |
from small investment. 1t promised untold
riches TO the distorted imagination. The |
storm of delusion passed by and left its |
thousands of victims, not only Frustrated |
financially, but debauched morally. Dur
ing the time of its prevalence the news
paper which warned the victim against |
the snares of the schemers was looked |
upon as an enemy.
A boom in anything is simply the judg-
ment of men in riotous revolt against rea-
son. 1t has its parallel in the wild STAN
pede Of dumb brutes. 1t is in the nature
Of spontaneous financial anarchy. While
It's influence holds sway over men, they re-
fuse to be guided by reason When they
are warned against the unreasonable rates
asked for stocks or property, the uni
versal refuge is in the statement of what
was said before the last rise. They point /!
triumphantly to the continued rise in the |
market, and to the failure of former pre-
dlctlors that sooner or later the market
would break, and yet it is in the very law Of
things that unnatural markets must break.
When wheat was selling in San Francisco
at the rate Of s. per ton in excess OF its
export value there were fools TO buy, not
because according TO any reasonable by
pothesis such a rate could be maintained.
but because prediction that it would break
sooner than it did had not been fulfilled.
When the stock booms were in their zenith,
| and the prices at which ten shares were
purchased quoted the aggregate value of
| the mine at ten times its most obvious
or apparent value, there were fools to pur-
| chase upon the innocent theory that the
value Of the stock was dependent entirely
| upon the consent of men. 1t is the old
| story of the belief in the rat of the Gov
ernment concerning money. There still
llnger among lis a few unfortunate, unin-
structed, senile specimens of idiocv, who
| believe that any substance in the world
could be monetized, if only mankind would
consent to it. The boom of markets fire.
quently gets the benefit of this blind faith
in the value of fat. There are men who
actually believe that the price of real
estate depends solely upon the consent of
the people who buy and sell. Their theo-
ries would answer in a world governed by
chance, but have no place in this, where
everything moral and physical is under
the dominion of law. The laws of value
are as irrefragable as the laws of gravita-
ton, and boom may be described as a
denial Of the existence of all law.
One very peculiar feature of modern
booms is the journalistic participation
| therein. One of our San Francisco con-
temporaries recently broke forth into edi-
torial denunciation of the anti-boomer. 1t
should be understood that the man who
contends that inflated values of real estate
not accompanied with corresponding de-
mand due to the increase of growth in
community Is an anti-boomer; that is to
say, when few shrewd spectators have
purchased quantity of city or country
landed property and desire to create
4 market, work the land off on innocent
people who can be made to believe
that the land viii double in value without
doubling the legitimate demand for land,
ind any one ccol-headed enough to call at
tention to the false factor underlying the
proposition, then such one is an "anti-
boomer" "silurian," and when Journal
takes up the cudgel in the interest Of this